Muslim protesters today called for the bombing of New York in a demonstration outside the US embassy in London.

There were threats of "another 9/11" from militants angry at reports of the desecration of the Koran by US troops in Iraq.

Some among the crowd burned an effigy of Tony Blair on a crucifix and then set fire to a Union flag and a Stars and Stripes.

Led by a man on a megaphone, they chanted, "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush". A small detail of police watched as they shouted: "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head."

Demonstrators in Grosvenor Square, some with their faces covered with scarves, waved placards which included the message: "Desecrate today and see another 9/11 tomorrow."

The protest was organised by groups including the Muslim Council for Britain and the Muslim Parliamentary Association of the UK. Their protest follows fury in the Islamic world over the claims in a Newsweek magazine that US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay had abused the Koran.

The magazine later withdrew the article and apologised but not before it triggered riots in Afghanistan in which 17 people died and 100 people were injured.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Martin Mubanga told the crowd he had seen a copy of the Koran "desecrated" during his time at Camp Delta.

He said: "This was one of the methods they used, throwing the Koran, my Koran, on the floor in my cell."

One of the protesters called for the release of radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza. He shouted: "Your so-called democracy will fall under the sword of Allah. The day of judgment is coming."

The demonstration coincided with protests across the world. On the West Bank 2,500 Palestinians streamed out of mosques shouting "Death to America". In Calcutta, India, protesters burned, spat and urinated on the US flag. And in Somalia thousands chanted anti-US slogans.

Arrest the fools. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can threaten anyone with impunity. And if these people got permits for their demonstration, they should be denied it the next time. Proper tolerance and hatred are mutually exclusive, one cannot tolerate hate and call it proper tolerance.

Notice how there isn't any mention of how many protesters there are. For some reason I doubt it attracted throngs of people.

What I find intriguing is that the article doesn't actually quote any of the people who addressed the crowd as advocating theocracy and violence. The only such statements it is able to dig up were made by unnamed protestors.

The only such statements it is able to dig up were made by unnamed protestors.

It was on BBC news the other night, and some in the crowd were clearly chanting those slogans.

Quote:

The protest was organised by groups including the Muslim Council for Britain and the Muslim Parliamentary Association of the UK.

The claim that these groups represent moderate muslims is becoming more untenable everyday. So, someone 'desecrated' a Koran. Muslims need to start growing a thicker skin, and start taking it on the chin like everyone else.

When religious minorities are treated with respect in Islamic countries, people will take this muslim whining a bit more seriously.

Does Terrorism Advance the Islamist Cause? The Islamist movement has two wings, one illegal and violent, the other legal and political. I believe the latter enjoys better prospects of success than the former. That's because law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and military forces know how to deal with the illegal and the violent, but the Western world lacks the muscles to defend itself from an insidious radical movement.

For these reasons, I consider the major terrorist assaults – 9/11, Bali, Madrid, Beslan – to be failures. They foul the nest and they rouse Westerners to action. Or, as I put it after the murder of Theo van Gogh, "Islamist terrorism in the West is counterproductive because it awakens the sleeping masses; in brief, jihad provokes crusade. A more cunning Islamist enemy would advance its totalitarian agenda through Mafia-like intimidation, not brazen murders."

Then along comes the irrepressible Mark Steyn who argues in the National Review ("A War Without Polkas") why 9/11 makes sense from the Islamist viewpoint. I am not convinced, but he does make an interesting case. He starts by assuming that Europe will be Muslim:

That being so, why louse things up by flying planes into buildings? Why not just lie low and in the fullness of time everything you want will come your way? The Wahhabists have successfully radicalized hitherto moderate Muslim communities from Albania to Indonesia; they've planted their most radical clerics as in-house padres throughout U.S. prisons and even the armed forces. Why screw things up by doing something so provocative it meets even [former secretary of defense] Bill Cohen's criteria for a response?

Here's why. It's always useful to test the limits of your adversaries, and, though it cost them their camps in Afghanistan and much of their leadership, the 9/11 attacks exposed many useful tidbits about the decadence of the West — the worthlessness of the post-modern NATO "alliance" and the active hostility of many of its key members to the United States, the immense deference accorded not just to Islam but to the most radical Islamic groups, especially when it comes to immigration and other aspects of national security. Many Islamists might have suspected all this, but it's heartening to have it confirmed: If the "sleeping giant" is hard to wake up, his European pals aren't sleeping so much as in irreversible comas. íŽ

But the real battleground is the West itself, the heart of Europe, where bombs in Spain, murders in the Netherlands, "honor killings" in Germany prompt only shrugs or preemptive capitulation from the political class.

In other words, Steyn is saying, successful terrorist attacks boost Islamist morale and provide good intel. True, but this is not worth it. I see these atrocities as radical Islam's indulgences, not its path to victory. (May 23, 2005)

That's exactly right. On the other hand, the best way to fight against Islam (or other religion for that matter) would be through a steady dilution of what it stands for. I suspect that a year or two living in the centre of Gangnam would do a lot to swing one's opinion towards the thought that maybe women not covering themselves from head to toe really isn't all that bad.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? First you post an article about ever-so-subtle change, and then you bring up a shocking story about a group in the Netherlands. Pointing to a tree being felled and saying 'Look! A tree is falling!' does not prove that the forest isn't growing.

And now for my equally singular example: the Persian guy, ever so chaste, honest and humble (according to him when we met), who only wanted to study English and then get back to Iran to get married, who then decided to try to pick up my Japanese gf at the time in Vancouver with full knowledge that we were going out. It didn't work.

Last note: I never made the claim that our societies ever did anything to dilute Islam; I was simply agreeing with you that subtlety is the far better solution, for both sides.

On the other hand, the best way to fight against Islam (or other religion for that matter) would be through a steady dilution of what it stands for

No, the best way to deal with Islam is to contain it to the Middle East, allowing it to languish in its backwardness, and to insist that muslims who immigrate and live in the West accept Western norms and values. If people want to live in countries where 'desecrating' the Koran is a crime, and 'insulting' Islam is an offence, they should not choose to live in countries where criticism of thought is an accepted part of political discourse. What is most telling about this whole episode is that the media and politicians have gone out of their way to condemn Newsweek's irresponsibility, and not the disgusting behaviour of intolerant fanatics who used the desecration story as an excuse to riot, murder and instigate another tiresome hatefest against the West and the USA.